Bob Marley and the Resistance To

DOSSIER Bob Marley and the Resistance to War: From Vindicationism to Emancipation and Spiritual Health Bob Marley y la Resistencia a la Guerra: de la vindicación a la emancipación y la salud espiritual Horace G. Campbell1 Recibido el 18 de agosto de 2015 Aprobado el 25 de septiembre de 2015 ABSTRACT RESUMEN Bob Marley became a philosopher of emancipatory Bob Marley se convirtió en un filósofo de la política politics. Emancipatory politics starts with a basic and de la emancipación. Política emancipadora que parte simple assumption that the African people think; del supuesto básico y simple de que el pueblo africano and politics must be based on openness, accountabil- piensa; y de que la política debe basarse en la apertura, ity, and the liberation of African women, collective en la responsabilidad y en la liberación de las mujeres leadership, and the security of the producers. At the africanas, en el liderazgo colectivo y en la seguridad de dawn of the twentieth century the Rastafari con- los productores. En los albores del siglo XX, el Rasta- fronted a number of revolutionary traditions. These fari confrontó una serie de tradiciones revolucionarias. were the traditions of the liberal democratic revolu- Eran las tradiciones de la revolución liberal democrá- tion against feudalism. Like most black people, the tica contra el feudalismo. Al igual que la mayoría de Rastafari knew that this liberal democratic revolution la gente negra, el Rastafari sabía que esta revolución did not include black and brown peoples. Rastafari liberal democrática no incluía a los pueblos negros y/o understood the racist logic of manifest destiny and cimarrones. El rastafari comprendió la lógica racista the vindicationists of the first period were opposed to del destino manifiesto y los vindicacionistas del pri- this liberal democratic creed that accepted imperial mer periodo se opusieron a este credo liberal que acep- wars as pacification. taba las guerras imperiales como pacificación. Key words: Bob Marley, Walter Rodney, Africa, reg- Palabras Claves: Bob Marley, Walter Rodney, Áfri- gae music, rasta woman, philosophy ca, música raggae, mujer rasta, filosofía 1 Horace G. Campbell: Profesor de Estudios Afroamericanos y Ciencias Políticas en la Universidad de Syracuse, New York. Es también Profesor Invitado de Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad de Tsinghua en Beijing. Ha publicado recientemente Global NATO and the Catastrophic failure in Libya (Monthly Review Press 2013) y Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA (Pluto Press, London 2010). Es autor de Reclaiming Zimbabwe: the Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation, y Pan Africanism, Pan Africanists and African Liberation in the 21st Century. Su famoso libro Rasta and Resistance: from Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney ya tiene ocho impresiones y ha sido traducido al italiano y al francés. Cuenta con más de cuarenta artículos en revistas y una docena de monografías y capítulos en libros editados. REVISTA Cuadernos del Caribe ISSN: 1794-7065 | ISSN-e: 2390-0555 | No. 20 julio - diciembre 2015 | pág. 13-32 San Andrés Isla, Colombia Horace G. Campbell INTRODUCTION Addis Ababa in 1991. Since that time the front In February 2005, at the moment of the sixtieth has provided the conditions for a small group to birthday of Bob Marley, one branch of the Ras- accumulate wealth. tafari movement organized a major peace concert Our discussion of Bob Marley is to be able to in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Under the banner Af- place the resistance of the Rastafari in the global rica Unite, this peace concert drew more than context of the peace and justice movements, es- 250,000 persons to sing and dance to the tunes pecially the revolutionary movements of the Ca- of the core philosophy of the Rastafari, Peace and ribbean. Robert Nesta Marley was born in the Love. Hundreds of thousands of Rastafari and island of Jamaica in 1945. He was the product non-Rastafari had used the occasion to promote of an interracial relationship between an Eng- conceptions of love in the society that has been lishman and an African woman from Jamaica. designated as the seat of the African Union. Marley identified with Africa and broke the long For many Rastafari, this was coming home tradition of mixed-race persons who denied their to Zion. In Ethiopia itself, millions of workers, African heritage. Bob Marley was born in the last traders, students, working women, merchants, days of World War II and as a child, he lived at and cultural artists took a close look at the im- Nine Miles in St. Ann, but moved to Kingston plications of standing up for peace and justice. with his mother while still in his early teens. This Would the same government that ceded the space move arose because of the dislocations wreaked for the peace concert open up the space for a on the Jamaican country side in the wake of the new tradition in the politics of Ethiopia? Would demand for raw materials for war making institu- the political leadership in Ethiopia and Africa tions (the mining of bauxite in Jamaica). He grew teach the importance of Bob Marley for political up in Trench Town among the most oppressed emancipation from imperial domination? sections of the working class of Kingston and These questions have been answered very was influenced by the Rastafari movement. This clearly in the negative by the political intellec- was a movement that linked itself culturally to tual and social policies of the present leader- Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a multinational, multieth- ship of the Pan African world. Less than three nic, and multireligious state of close to eighty months after this Peace and Love concert in million citizens. Addis Ababa the ruling party and government One of the revered traditions of the current of Ethiopia used the instruments of the state to leadership in Ethiopia relates to the celebration ensure that a small elite aligned with the United of the continuity of the integration between the States remained at the helm of the government. state and one of the organized religious forces, An election, labeled fraudulent by international that of the Orthodox Christian Church. Chris- observers, was followed by repression, military tianity has been practiced in Ethiopia since the skirmishes, and within another year, a military fourth century and this has been a source of in- incursion into Somalia “to fight Islamists.” This spiration and spiritual energy for African Chris- expansionist campaign confirmed another tradi- tians at home and abroad. Positive references to tion, that of militarism, repression, and rule by Ethiopia in the Bible, especially the quotation, a small elite that dominate the institutions of “Ethiopia stretches forth her hand unto God,” coercion and administration. The current ruling had influenced a brand of African nationalism Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic that was termed Ethiopianism. This positive ref- Front (EPRDF) is comprised of a political alli- erence had been used by literate Africans at the ance that at one moment had proclaimed itself turn of the twentieth century to vindicate Africa to be a Marxist Leninist “revolutionary force.” from the racist propaganda that raged after the This front has held power since it marched into imperial partitioning of Africa. Vindicationism 14 Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Caribe | San Andrés Isla, Colombia | Bob Marley and the Resistance to War: From Vindicationism to Emancipation and Spiritual Health and Ethiopianism flourished even further after military uprising in 1974 but the Rastafari sang, the victory of the Abyssinians over the Italians Ja Lives, and continued to proclaim the divin- at Adowa in 1896. Supporters of Ethiopianism ity of Selassie. Yet, because of the consistency included Africans who adhered to different reli- of the message of peace and love, the Rastafari gious practices. The positive identification with philosophy has transcended the other limita- Ethiopia included Christians, Muslims, and Af- tions and contradictions of this movement and, ricans of diverse religious affiliation. in the process, brought forth another tradition, When the Rastafari movement burst on the that of humans seeking to live in peace on a world stage in Jamaica, it had started out as an- militarized planet. other vindicationist movement and identified In the past forty years the literature and writ- with the official Christianity of the state and the ings on the philosophy of the Rastafari and Bob Emperor of Ethiopia. Thus Jamaican peasants Marley have served to shed more light on the and workers were involved in a movement that role of music and the song as a mobilizing force had to address political and religious realities in in society. Bob Marley was a cultural artist who both Jamaica and Ethiopia. Slowly, these Africans became internationally known as a defender of who claimed Ethiopia as their home began to love, freedom, and emancipation. The concert learn that not all Ethiopians spoke Amharic and in Ethiopia was supposed to bring a message of that the cultural and ethnic makeup of Ethiopia peace and unity to the headquarters of the Af- was richer than the simplistic and homogenous rican Union. The Rastafari movement and in- nation that was represented by the media. dividual Rastas had been eloquent advocates of This learning process has been continuous for African independence, self-affirmation, self-de- the past eighty years to the point where one can termination, and African unity and the Rastafari now reflect on the traditions of the Rastafari. songs of love and inspiration are now enjoyed in This reflection has been sharpened by the expe- all parts of the world. In particular, Bob Marley’s riences of those Rastafari brethren and sistren call for emancipation from mental slavery struck who have made Ethiopia their home. From the a responsive chord with humans seeking alterna- early days of the movement, anthropologists and tives to the present mode of social and economic sociologists had noted that the Jamaican peasants organization.

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